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16 June 2026
BIM has delivered £7.5bn of projects in Scotland, next stop a connected digital estate
23 June 2026
Information management best practice has been adopted on £7.5bn of projects in Scotland since 2017. Now, Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) wants to push towards a connected digital estate.
Infrastructure body SFT has taken stock of BIM’s progress in Scotland thanks to detailed research conducted by Okana. The ensuing report sets out a “practical path towards connected digital estates: a realistic operating model in which the right asset information is created once, properly governed, connected to the systems that estates teams use, and maintained for use over time”.
The research and report were led by Melanie Robinson, strategy director at Okana. The main driver of information management in the Scottish public sector has been clear policy direction and programme requirements, in particular the £2bn Learning Estate Investment Programme (LEIP) that requires authorities to adopt the SFT’s standard information management plan (SIMP) to secure LEIP funding.
The SIMP is Scotland’s national resource for specifying how information should be delivered and managed on public sector building projects, aligned to 19650.
“I think too many of the issues that come through information management implementation is because it’s treated as a bolt-on or something separate.”
Melanie Robinson
Robinson told DC+: “The SIMP is not a fixed asset that can be used as a blunt instrument; it’s something that is flexible and can speak to different contexts. It speaks to the different levels of maturity, but also gives space for clients to evolve within that as well. [That the SIMP enables] people to dip a toe into something a little bit lighter, to try to get information structured in some format has been absolutely revolutionary, because it’s no longer talking about the models or the clever technology or the digital. It’s getting everybody onto that journey and speaking the same language. It’s really revolutionised how people talk about information.”
Ryan Tennyson, associate director at SFT, echoed Robinson’s view. “I think the simplicity is critical, but probably the most challenging [aspect],” he said. “Public sector capital works and estates teams are flat out every day, so you need to make [change and the resources behind that change] as simple as you can to allow teams to be able to dovetail that [change] and work with it.”
Paul Dodd, senior associate director at SFT, emphasised the importance of the practicality of the SIMP. “One of our early lessons is that guidance gets you so far – and that’s why we pivoted to a resource that you can actually implement – and flexibly so,” he said.
BIM – business as usual, not an add-on
To ensure maximum adoption and to realise the full value of information management best practice, it must be seen as business as usual for authorities and their supply chain, not as an add-on.
“One of our early lessons is that guidance gets you so far – and that’s why we pivoted to a resource that you can actually implement – and flexibly so.”
Paul Dodd
Robinson noted: “I think too many of the issues that come through information management implementation are because it’s treated as a bolt-on or something separate. What we really need to do is look at the whole policy landscape, get information management integrated into policies across the board, so that it’s not speaking its own language in its own little space: it’s actually chiming with the entire design, construction and operation process as a natural part of it, rather than something that we do above and beyond.”
Her interviews with authorities revealed that time and resources are an issue for them. “Something that really came through in the interviews, in particular, was that the local authorities seem not to have the same amount of ability to invest in [information management] as their supply chain, but they would like to,” she said. “I think the report is a call to action for local authorities to have that ability to invest the time and the money and the resources into it.”
Tennyson highlighted the need to focus on purpose, the ‘why’. “You have to ensure that the approach is outcome-focused,” he said. “If it’s not part of why we’re doing it, there’s no point in doing it. If it’s outcome-focused and clients know how to ask for what they need, then everything else can fall into place behind that.”
He observed that the shorter and more frequent projects in an estates team create more opportunities for information management best practice to become embedded, consistently drawing in members of teams, compared with a capital works project that might take five years, and the team disbands afterwards.
Adoption beyond core education programme
Authorities’ success with using the SIMP means that they are not only using it on their LEIP projects. Tennyson said: “Off the back of that programme, [the local authorities that have really engaged with the process] are using the SIMP and information management as business as usual on their wider capital works programmes.
“As well as a top-down approach, it’s also been growing quite organically, bottom-up from within teams,” he added. “And it sticks. As the schools programme begins to tail off, there’s a clear trajectory [of take-off]. It’s also evident within the tier one contractors: they’ve now got a structured handover process, which they like to follow. You can see them now going to the clients and saying, ‘this is what we would use, can we continue to use this on this project?’”
“We’ll work with our stakeholders to carve out the next 10 years of direction towards a connected digital estate, and ultimately, what might be beyond that in terms of digital twins.”
Ryan Tennyson
Dodd noted that not only are different authorities moving at different speeds, but that the rate of BIM adoption also varies from department to department within each authority. “The FM team may have a real desire to address information management, or it might be capital projects – organisations’ journeys are influenced by how [their different] departments are grasping information management as well,” he said.
The LEIP not only mandates the adoption of the SIMP, but also requires someone to act as the client information manager. Tennyson observed that those acting in that role have started to facilitate engagement between different departments within authorities. “It’s opened up the internal communication channels – which is vital,” he said.
By and large, the client information manager role is fulfilled by the specialist consultants, Robinson noted, but Tennyson revealed that authorities are also advancing their knowledge and filling the role themselves. “We have evidence that local authorities have advertised and brought in their own information managers now to grow their capability internally,” he said. “That was the whole idea of the client information manager – not just to support the delivery of the SIMP, but to also support that local authority and their team, do that knowledge transfer, and understand what they need to do in terms of developing their future capability.”
What next?
The Okana report makes 10 recommendations, grouped into three themes of why, what and how.
Why
- Implement a systems approach to policy.
- Shift digital estate investment to outcomes-based business cases and assurance.
- Further develop the benefits case to unlock and sustain investment.
What
- Maintain and scale a national digital estate centre of excellence.
- Digitalise the existing estate, not just new projects.
- Set a tiered national baseline for digital estate information.
How
- Align procurement, funding, and commercial models to information outcomes and maintainability.
- Embed the capability and capacity of information management within organisations.
- Enable wholelife continuity through interoperability principles.
- Evolve the SIMP into a flexible wholelife framework.
Dodd said: “I think the recommendations set out a really strong, rich conversation about a roadmap, and what should happen next. We chair a Scottish public sector digital estate group, and we hope to work with them and others to build on the findings, the recommendations, and basically develop a roadmap that engages with the evolving standards, and engages with industry and public so that it works and is deliverable.”
Tennyson added: “We’ll work with our stakeholders to carve out the next 10 years of direction towards a connected digital estate, and ultimately, what might be beyond that in terms of digital twins.”
Robinson concluded: “I want the report to be able to open up more dialogue on broader information management, because I think what this demonstrates is that a digital estate doesn’t necessarily have to be sensor-driven, it doesn’t have to be a high-end digital twin, but it can be, and I think that’s really, really important to try to get everyone on this journey, so I really do hope it can inspire some conversations at different levels.”
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